Metro-North needs better safety culture, panel says

Emergency personnel work at the scene of a Metro-North train that derailed just north of the Spuyten Duyvil station in the Bronx Dec. 1, 2013. Four people were killed and dozens more were injured when the Manhattan bound train derailed shortly after 7 a.m.
(Photo:
Seth Harrison/The Journal News
)

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'Blue Ribbon Panel' says Metro-North needs better safety culture

Tension between divisions who work on tracks and keep the trains running

Report looks at Long Island Rail Road and NYC's subways and buses as well

Metro-North Railroad needs a stronger safety culture, and suffers from tension between departments as crews who maintain the tracks vie for track time with those who keep the trains running, a panel of transportation experts concluded in a report released Wednesday.

The report makes 29 recommendations for improving safety at Metro-North, Long Island Rail Road and on New York City's subways and buses, all operations of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

While all of the agencies saw tensions between the maintenance and operations divisions, it is "magnified" at Metro-North, the panel concluded.

"The balance appears to have tipped too far, perhaps because on-time performance had always been the key measure of (Metro-North) improvement since the MTA takeover," the report says. The takeover occurred in 1983.

President Joseph Giulietti vowed to address that last problem — the placing of on-time performance before safety — when he took his job Feb. 10.

Railroad spokesman Aaron Donovan said Wednesday that the issue has been addressed.

"We have infused across Metro-North a new way of thinking in which track access for maintenance purposes and inspection is prioritized," he said.

MTA Chief Executive Thomas Prendergast, who assembled the panel, called its report "an important step as the MTA addresses not just the particular problems we have experienced since last year, but the general safety culture as well."

The report was made public the same day that Metro-North released a more detailed report on track maintenance that was commissioned after the May 17, 2013, derailment in Bridgeport, Conn., that injured 76 people.

The Blue Ribbon Panel was established because of that and other incidents at the MTA agencies. Metro-North is also the subject of five ongoing investigations by the National Transportation Safety Board, including one on the fatal derailment in the Bronx last December.

The NTSB is expected to release a final report on all the incidents in November.

While the safety culture at Long Island Rail Road and New York City's subways and buses seemed to perform "fairly well," it needed work at Metro-North, the panel found.

"The number of incidents that have occurred in recent months sends a clear message that fundamental rebuilding needs to occur to get to a level of safety achievement that would be acceptable to the rail agency's customers, employees and the communities they serve," the panel concluded.